Bunter

I don't know why, but this Tweet keeps coming true.

Travel Residue

From a recent journey west. Here today...

Mall Talk/Food Court Drift

E: These were Kiosks that I was setting up. A pyramid of gold bars, cheap/fake jewelry on felt displays and a laptop with a jewelry scale

R: It was like an old beach house..I worked in the stock room which was really bright with floor to ceiling rolling shelves

E: The buildings are cavernous and unfurnished, save for the 20ft tall wire racks that define the aisles, full of back stock.

R: I had to be there at midnight and was there til noon sorting through a jungle of shoes.

I'm waiting by the phone for the mall to call. If i don't get the job I'll be shattered. I don't even want it, i need it, it's almost beneath me. But I imagine the discounts on face balms, the cucumber mask from the artsy apothecary I could try getting into. I imagine a ritual i will invent- Enzo pizza and a seltzer with lemon, beer somewhere bourgie after work on Wednesdays, my new life as a shadow Gap girl armed with a folding board, a cashmere with a cowl neck sliding soundlessly down. Last minute madness on Xmas eve. I'm not religious so it will be refreshing to spend the day in the service of something bigger than myself, my emerging relationship with the girl at the food court who gives smoothie samples, her neat white smile for me. Bland house music on Pandora, twisting in a three way mirror.

E: I remember the way it smelled in there- like warm plastic and cheap incense- and the feeling of having a job and tasks that i knew I could perform well. It's where I learned that I was excellent at customer service.

R: This 4 year old girl saw me fixing a mannequin and started pointing to me and trying to get her mothers attention. She was yelling, "Mom there's a real person in there!" Her mother said,"No those are just mannequins!" For some reason, I decided to say to the girl, "She's right I'm not real. "

Maybe my mom will respect me, grotesquely overqualified, maybe I'll thwart a terrorist attack- a bomb in an H&M bag. Maybe I'll trip a Colts fan, misanthropy winning my body back, babies drooling in their strollers, men peddling hair extensions in unbranded kiosks.
What's the weirdest store? Flag World? I remember being a teen, marching around, flapping the tiny flags. There's nothing you can do in a mall to truly feel rebellious. I find this vaguely comforting, a hug from my homeland. I practically grew up in traffic around a Galyan's, my mom and I wobbling in our winter coats out of the car across the ice to stroll through Sears, power walk by Pass Pets, the smell of a shar pei's cage- piss on newspaper wafting into Kaybee Toys. In B Dalton sitting with the Spin Guide to Alternative Rock across my lap, taking notes: Hole, Bratmobile, B-52s. I fell immediately in love with a boy at Sam Goody admiring the same Smashing Pumpkins poster as me, but I'll never see him again. Now I'm 31.

R: One of my co-workers was this older woman who seemed like Mother Time to me then but she was probably only 34 but had been smoking every day of her life.

E: I started to notice random men of different ages starting to congregate around that bench. They would all just watch me dress and undress the mannequins and it was really uncomfortable. Every time I would change that window it would happen. Complete strangers sitting on a bench together watching me.

One time Vanessa and I went to Castleton with a carton of raw eggs, left them nestled in Macy's miniature Christmas trees, on the stools at the piercing pagoda, in the pockets of dangling minks. We dubbed our game "You're the Rotten Egg," evading mall security, pre-Segway era; shoot the mall cop in your head.

Editor's note: the phone never rang.

Response to review of "Doing it Themselves: Artists Explore the Handmade"

I wrote this in response to the review of "Doing it Themselves: Artists Exploring the Handmade" by Dan Grossman, on view at the Indianapolis Art Center until January 30, 2016.

I want to respond to the point that my artwork “may not offer social commentary…if there is such a thing, beyond irreverence.”
As an instructor, I insist to my students that the primary job of an artist is to communicate—either by visualizing the ineffable, or by contributing to an onging cultural dialogue in a way that adds something to our understanding of the world.
It is her responsbility to know what she is trying to communicate before the viewer, loaded with his own experiences and influences, complicates the dialogue.

I am interested in investigating the distinctions between art, decoration, and kitsch and the function of adornment. I am fascinated by the utility of pictures, particularly the kind that are so commonplace as to be overlooked.
The piece referred to by Mr. Grossman, “Welcome” references a traditional household sign—a plaque or flag bearing a pineapple saying “Welcome,” or “Welcome Friends.”
While I’m aware of the history of pineapples as symbols for goodwill, I am more confused about the ubiquity of this kind of signage in homes or on the shelves of stores, where many people seem to purchase framed images.
What would be the affect if the artist adjusts the language?

I guess this could be referred to as a kind of irreverence, if you choose to hear me “taking a tone,” but I consider it part of an investigation into the function of marginal forms.
As I wrote in my statement for “Doing it Themselves,” I am equally fascinated with looking at the reflexively made art of neighborhood backyards and basement thrift stores as the art of galleries and museums. I relate to the imperfections of these forms and their immediacy.
Surprisingly, this gets into terrain about class and power.
The people who made the puffpainted sweatsuit or poured concrete lawn goose might have access to 3D printers and and wireless scanning but as a downwardly mobile artist in search of a sustainable practice, I do not. Or, more significantly, I choose to work with the materials to which I have more immediate access (paper, plywood, paint). In this case the medium is part of the message.
In this same way, choosing to learn from a small business’s hand painted signage or investigate the function of folk mediums could be an attempt at amplifying the marginal and destabilizing power, which is the thrust of my artmaking commentary. Sorry mom and Mr. Grossman, it’s not just a phase.

Cartoon Research Laboratory

Winter was a time for tea and contemplation of the nuances of anime.
Now it's Spring. Birds are chirping, bears are bumping butts, and big dogs are bonking little dogs on the head with meaty fists. It's duck season! It's rabbit season! It's Research Season.



Cartoon Research Laboratory is an opportunity to consider the themes and tropes of "classic cartoons" alongside recent animation that has absorbed their influence.
April's theme was "Night in the Store."



Cartoon Research Lab is also an opportunity to enjoy Surrealist breakfast food and lots of coffee amongst other scholars of the medium.

(one scholar with his deviled quail eggs, "Little Devils")




(one serious academic)

Many Moons

(Lunar research photographs from Bedford, Indiana taken the first day of 2015; inspirational quote from my partner, drawing by me)

Moby Dog

Finally got my white whale: this bootleg Snoopy from a mailbox on Indianapolis' north side.

I dedicate my growing ephemeral collection, to my spiritual kin, Public Collectors.

The Taco Bell Jar

The first similarity I noticed was the typography—tall, narrow seventies letters with curlicuing flourishes at their otherwise hard edges. Davida font against a flat colored background. The second similarity that struck me was the shame.
I’ve always had a weakness for wordplay. I explained to my co-worker that if I ever got married I’d want to have an Otis Wedding.
“It would be on the dock of the bay,” I gushed, “and the procession would enter to a chorus of whistlers who’d move from Motown tunes to more complicated baroque arrangements.”
“You want one if the most significant events in your life to be based on a weak pun?” He asked.
“Yes,” I gurgled, tears forming in my eyes as I clasped my hands across my heart. “I do.”
So when I divined the similarities between the classic cover of Sylvia Plath’s proto-feminist novel The Bell Jar and the old Taco Bell logo, and I realized they were unified by the best kind of pun—one that marries high and low culture—I was beyond inspired. I realized immediately that I must do a performance.
I’m moved and impressed by the old school strain of performance art that hinges on acts of endurance. In 1974, Marina Abramovic wrote these instructions for a performance called Freeing the Voice:
“I lie on the floor with my head tilted backwards.
I scream until I lose my voice.”
My deep-seeded authority problems, bolstered through years of exposure to punk rock and Catholic education, have rendered me hopelessly irreverent, so I also think this classic type of art performance is a fair target for parody. I’d sit at Taco Bell, in its gaudy plastic “dining room” where no one besides the staff spends more than twenty minutes and read The Bell Jar from cover to cover in one sitting, and I’d make a video of the whole thing.




I pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot on Saturday night as dusk fell. I was already violating one of my personal life rules: Only eat Taco Bell under cloak of night. Why? Because of shame. I was uncomfortably aware of my body, clad in a peach cashmere sweater and pencil skirt borrowed from a friend’s vintage store. I also, as a rule, don’t wear peach, but I was committed to approaching shame from all sides, and the element of costume took me out of myself. I smoothed my hair into a makeshift French twist, and with paperback under my arm entered the taco complex.
I ordered some hot garbage from the helpful young man behind the register and slid into a hard plastic booth, trying to make myself comfortable. I was in it for the long haul. And, as it turned out, this franchise was a hot spot for loitering. A crew of college-age Dungeons and Dragons players and a boisterous group of transients rounded out the dining room crowd. Their conversations provided the ambient soundtrack that I’d alternately eavesdrop on and try to ignore over the course of my sitting.
The Bell Jar, Chapter One: Sensitive young writer Esther Greenwood has been offered a dream job doing temporary writing for a women’s magazine, but her experiences in the big city lead to her psychological unraveling. Esther spends most of chapter one getting drunk:
“I began to think vodka was my drink at last…It went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike” (10).
This plot element underscores another one of my personal roles I was breaking in the service of this performance: Never eat Taco Bell sober. Heretoforth, I’d only ever experienced the Crispy Potato Soft Taco, the Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito through an alcoholic fog. Sobriety did the food no favors, but Fire Sauce did, so I smothered my bean blobs with it, trying to be conscientious of my borrowed cashmere.
“I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I’d been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet…” (1).
One Doritos Tacos Loco down, one chapter under my belt.
A half hour into my performance, the conversation between the transient-types at the table next to me got a little louder and harder to ignore. As I ran my eyes across Plath’s hefty metaphors, attempting to absorb their content, I simultaneously absorbed the details of some drifter drama.
“She’s beautiful!” a craggy man behind me hollered to his companions about some unsuspecting diner. “Too bad she’s not twenty years older! Shit, another seven!”
Here the rattle of his plastic dice across the tabletop entwined with Plath’s narrative like a thorny bramble. I took a pull from a massive cup of Baja Blast and worked on comprehending.
Esther spends Chapter 3 of The Bell Jar feeling like the black sheep at an upscale banquet for the journalist girls sharing her ranks. She watches a centerpiece of marzipan fruits melt as she shovels avocado, crab salad, and caviar in to her mouth. She sips an unadorned glass of vodka and entertains herself by lying to strangers.
I was lying to strangers too! I nibbled at my taco in a mannered way, fingering my out-of-place pearl necklace. I was also freezing. Taco Bell seemed to maintain a chilly temperature to discourage this type of long-term stay. It also neglected to provide electrical outlets for weirdos making videos. I thought when I was here, I was family. Or is that the Fazoli’s slogan?
The Taco Bell slogan emblazoned on my giant cup was “Live Mas.” This is a fittingly clunky juxtaposition of English and conversational Spanish, and there’s probably a suicide joke teed up there, but I’ll avoid it. Despite Plath’s morbid reputation garnered from her grim poetic imagery and dramatic death, The Bell Jar is a book that feels very alive. Esther feels everything strongly, and the book is dense with raw, sensory experiences that she is ill-equipped to process. Maybe amidst the Taco Bell crowd, my transient tablemates were the ones who were truly alive. Maybe they were the real endurance artists. All I can say for sure, is that one hour into my reading they drove me out. The reviews of girls’ bodies and the rattle of the incessant dice became more than I could withstand, and I broke from my prim pastel character to fling the book across the booth.
“I can’t fucking deal!” I announced to the camera, then laughed and laughed like Marina Abramovic never would.

New Nowhere

Extreme Guest Appearances 2: Charles Fox

My good friend Charles Fox, linked to often throughout this blog, has become one of the internet's most thorough archivists of classic, often wonky American signage. He also might be the only person I know doing something ambitious with Instagram (username Charles_fox). Here are a few of his favorite signs he photographed in 2013.

Transmission from a Secret Location (Live Journal Reissue)

Friday night I attended the last show ever and documentary kickoff party for an historic Indianapolis "punk house" called the Secret Location. I lived there for a short period in 2005. The area in which the house stands has changed a lot since packs of feral dogs prevented me from getting in my car; the winds of gentrification have rendered the neighborhood desirable, and pushed out the possibility of the house pulling double duty as crud venue, seemingly forever.
For the documentary, I created transcripts of set lists found in the beery aftermath of rock show mornings after.

I post these historical artifacts here today alongside the Live Journal post from 2005 (r.i.p. furniture_party!) from which they were originally transcribed:

I live in a house of rock dorks,
where dudes nod their ball capped heads.
Bowls are smoked and bowels are moved,
beers are spilled
and everything's an ashtray.
It has not worked out as well as
I hoped it would but it is not
without its charms.
When I leave this world of beard
buzz and drum hands I will miss
the morning after set lists most of all.

Unearthed were the following texts:

New Horizons

The internet reimagined as an Indianapolis near-westside watering hole.
Composition inspired by every Instagram ever lately.

Midwestern Beer Pastoral

With idyllic Cooper Black.
Indianapolis, October 2013.

Miniature Home Invasion

Blogtober barrels on into November; Today I showcase a collection of collections-- friends' miniature "kitsch houses"-- and a drawing inspired by a seventies shadow box.

Here we have the shadow box of video wizard and miniature enthusiast Stephanie Halstead:


Meanwhile, Containerization's Charles Fox has a minimalist approach to kitsch:


Mine mostly houses my existential dilemmas. Also, kitchen witches, bean display, harvest colors, and Hollie Hobbit.

Breakfast Imbalance

Bad breakfast for the collection, from the window of (award-winning wing merchant) Buffalouie's in Bloomington, IN.
Gaggy yolk and a bacon wave that's an affront to good taste.
Abject snack facts are stranger than fiction.

Downwardly Mobile

This lightly hideous mural from the exterior of His and Hers Diner in Indianapolis, Indiana (and others of its ilk) fed into one of my First Friday creations at General Public Collective a couple weekends ago...

Curved Times

May feels like goings on. Maybe we'll throw some simulacra on the grill.

Bedford Eyes/ Male Gaze

2 signs seen last week in beautiful downtown Bedford, IN.

Virgin v. Whore: Who will win???